Heavy snow, rainfall in Afghanistan kill 61 and injure 110, authority says

Heavy snow and rainfall over the past three days have killed 61 people and injured 110 across Afghanistan, the country’s disaster management authority said Saturday. The National Disaster Management Authority reported that it was still working to reach villages cut off by bad weather and blocked roads.

Spokesman Yousaf Hammad said 61 people had died and 110 were injured. He also said 458 homes had been completely or partially destroyed, and that hundreds of animals had died in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Hammad said the numbers could change as authorities gathered more information from the provinces.

The authority described ongoing difficulties opening roads and gaining access to areas that were cut off, complicating emergency efforts in the impoverished country.

Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, with snow and heavy rain that can trigger flash floods, the report said. The article noted that in 2024 more than 300 people died in springtime flash floods.

It also tied the impact of such disasters to decades of conflict and poor infrastructure, along with a struggling economy, deforestation, and intensifying effects of climate change. The report said the impact is particularly severe in remote areas where many homes are built of mud and offer limited protection against sudden deluges or heavy snowfall.

The eastern provinces were still struggling to recover from earthquakes that struck last year in late August and again in November, destroying villages and killing more than 2,200 people. The report said those displaced by the quakes are particularly vulnerable to extreme cold and bad weather conditions.

In December, UNICEF said an estimated 270,000 children in the areas affected by the quakes were in “severe risk of life-threatening diseases related to the cold.” Earlier this month, the United Nations said Afghanistan would “remain one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises in 2026.”

The United Nations and its humanitarian partners launched a $1.7 billion appeal to assist nearly 18 million people in urgent need in Afghanistan, according to the report.